THROWDOWN Frontman Says Being Compared To PANTERA Is 'An Honor And A Privilege'

FMQB recently conducted an interview with THROWDOWN frontman Dave Peters. An excerpt from the chat follows:

FMQB: It sounds like you went for a more straight ahead metal sound on this album with less of your usual hard core vibe.

Dave Peters: We really didn't go for anything specific. We had a lot more time to write this record, so we took our time and brought everything we could to the table. It just evolved naturally that way. A lot of '90s thrash and groove metal has been an influence on us for a long time, and I think it has influenced contemporary hard core as well. So it just evolved naturally and came out that way.

FMQB: Did the lineup changes result in a different style of songwriting or a new direction for the band?

Dave Peters: Not necessarily. [Guitarist] Mark Choiniere, our latest addition to the band, joined a little over two years ago, and he came in during the writing process of [our last album] "Vendetta". And [drummer] Ben Dussault has been in the band for over three years now. So it wasn't so much the introduction of a new member as it was feeling like we didn't want to hold back on anything like we did with "Vendetta". There are a lot of things we wish we had tried on "Vendetta", but we didn't because we felt like we had to observe some imaginary parameters that some bands feel exist for them. That's something important we've learned over the years — to just write from the heart, and don't fear whatever comes out. Just embrace it, and some people will follow you where you take them and some won't. But we've had an overwhelmingly great response from this record, so we've been really happy.

FMQB: What kind of things did you do differently since you felt less inhibited?

Dave Peters: We just wanted to make it a more comfortable situation for us because we were in a really high pressure situation when we did "Vendetta". We had been touring so much and we couldn't afford to not tour, so unfortunately writing and recording our record was almost secondary to touring. At the time we had a month to put the material together, and then we drove to Massachusetts to record, and we recorded for a little over a month. While [producer] Zeuss is a great engineer and producer, it doesn't change the fact that that was not an adequate amount of time to make a real quality record. We're all proud of "Vendetta", but in retrospect we wish we had more time. And as much as we enjoy working with Zeuss, we just couldn't bring ourselves to record away from home [at his Massachusetts studio] because we spend so much time on the road. We really needed to be close to home and have our heads in the right place to make the record we wanted. There are more than enough studios in Los Angeles, so we decided to work with Mudrock (EIGHTEEN VISIONS, AVENGED SEVENFOLD). He hadn't done anything quite as heavy as us before, but we thought that was a cool thing. He made the production really heavy, but he had some new and different angles of looking at our songs that we might not have thought of. It was great, it worked out really well.

FMQB: I keep hearing people compare the new album to PANTERA. How do you feel about that comparison?

Dave Peters: I think it's cool. We don't get caught up too much in what the press says and what people are saying in general, but we're really happy with the record and very proud of it. PANTERA was a huge influence on us, it's a band I've listened to since I was about 12-years-old. A band like PANTERA, SEPULTURA, SLAYER or METALLICA — we have no problem if people want to throw those names out as comparisons for our band! It's an honor and a privilege to be compared to — in my opinion — the greatest metal band ever. But like I said, we don't get too caught up in the positive or the negative. We just do what we do, and if people draw the comparison then that's cool.

Read the entire interview at www.fmqb.com.

Check out THROWDOWN's "Venom & Tears" album at this location.